Cry of Fear
Cry of Fear '''was intially a '''Half-Life '''total convertion mod that was later released as a full, standalone game. The Mod was released ''February 22nd, 2012 and the Standalone version was released ''April 25th, 2013. ''The game was created by Team Psykskallar, who also developed '''''Afraid of Monsters DC, as well as creating almost everything in Resident Evil: Cold Blood. You play as Simon Henriksson, a 19 years old male who wakes up in an alley after being strucked by a car. Confused and alone, he quickly realizes that the city has new, monstrous inhabitants, and must endure to get to the safety of his home... Synopsis You wake up in a dark alley, not knowing anything. What has happened anyway? You struggle after the truth and answers. Answers you want to know in the darkness and fear, which makes your heartbeat race like violent blows against your head. Where do "they" come from? What has happened? Are you just turning insane? The time is up; you can't stay there reading your smses forever. It's time to head out and find the answers New characteristcs Cry of Fear features new characteristics that make it different from many other Half-Life mods. One of the new characteristics in this game is the Inventory System. Simon (the protagonist) can carry 3 items on his pockets and 3 in his bag. This limit in the inventory is to increase both survival horror experience and realism, as well as prevent the player to carry everything he finds, preventing the player from feeling like Rambo '''in a horror game (*coughF.E.A.R.3cough*). Be warned that accessing the inventory doesn't pause the game. During a determinated moment in the game, Simon will lose his bag, reducing the inventory to only 3 slots, making the ''item carring decision ''even more hard. From the inventory, the player has the following options: *Equip: Self-explanatory *Use: Self-explanatory * Drop: Self-explanatory *Quick slots: Weapons and/or light sources equipped in this slots can be accessed by pressing 1, 2 or 3 in your keyboard. Equip weapons and/or light sources in this slots to access them faster, which can save your life in determinated moments. *Dual-Wield: Simon can wield a weapon (firearm or melee) and an optional item (like a light source or another weapon) in both hands. Note that the game will tell you if you can dual-wiled some items or not. If you have weapons and/or light sources in your quick slots, you can dual-wield them by pressing both keys at the same time (1 and 2 for example). *Combine: Self-explanatory Another characteristic of Cry of Fear is the ''Health and Stamina System''. In this game, your health will not be shown in numbers like the original '''Half-Life. Instead, there's a HUD showing both a red bar (health) and a blue bar (stamina). The only way to replenish your health is by the use of Morphine Syringes. Although there are many scattered throughout the game, it is recommended not to use a syringe unless Simon's health is below 25%. Also, if you use more than one syringe at the same time, Simon's vision will blur, making it harder to shoot any firearms you might have (this is made to prevent any healing abuse). When healing, Simon will move his hoddie's left sleeve, revealing many cuts on his wrist, while he injects himself with the morphine. Stamina is also crucial in this game. When Simon runs or jumps, his stamina will be consumed. Once the stamina bar has been completely depleted, Simon will become tired and you will not be able to run or jump until he recovers himself. Stamina is also recovered either by crouching (which replenish the stamina bar at a double rate) or by using a morphine syringe, but the use of a syringe is more recommended if you're with low health. Development The game started being developed in 2008, sometime after Afraid of Monsters DC was released. The team went through many inconveniences during the development (which includes the hacking of ruMpel's Steam account and MSN account, along with the death of his computer), along with being busy with high school and family. Many fans started to losing hope of Cry of Fear ever being released, mainly because of the many delays that the (by then) mod had. Team Psykskallar limited themselves to show screenshots and some videos which would not spoil too much the game. ruMpel started to recieve so many stupid questions from some people that he delayed the mod for some time. Finally, after 4 long years, Cry of Fear was released 22/02/2012. During the 4 years of development of Cry of Fear, many ideas were scrapped, while others were improved. For example, the phone's flashlight was initally made to illuminate an area around you, but it was later decided that it would only illumante an area in front of you. Another example is the switchblade, which had a different model and had much faster attack speed. Another improvement made was in the inventory system, since initially it had 12 slots and the ammo used 1 slot, but it was later reduced to 6 slots only. Chapters Cry of Fear is divided in 8 chapters (7 if you get ending 4): *Chapter 1: Lost in a City Simon wakes up in an alley after being strucked by a car. Wondering himself how he got there, he recieves a SMS form his mother, telling him to get home quickly. Simon then starts to make his way home, but when he reaches a hall stained with blood, he's attacked by a deformed, twitching man who's armed with a hammer. Simon stabs him to death and shocked, asks himself who was that man. He tries to call the police, but he's unable to make a call since there's no signal. After reaching the back part of a building, he recieves another SMS, but not from his mother, but from an anonymous person, who asks Simon for help in the apartments. Simon then enters the apartment and the anonymous person sends him another message telling him that he's on the fourth floor. Simon begins to explore the building while he finds himself with many disturbing things; creatures that look like children armed with knifes, women whose arms and legs are replaced with spikes, ghostly women who give Simon an uncontrollable urge to kill himself and various notes of what seems to be a derranged man who delights himself by torturing, abusing and killing the childs who live in the building. After reaching the fourth floor, he enters the room of the mysterious sender; a man who seems to have killed himself and is now drowning on a bathtub filled with blood. After trying to find a way to get out of the building, he manages to activate the building's elevator. Simon reaches the bottom floor of the building, only to find himself in a sick and bloody version of the apartments. After descending many stairs and reaching a door, Simon fights the first boss in the game, Sawer, who can kill Simon instantly if he manages to hit him with his chainsaw. Once the enemy has recieved enough damage, Sawer will knee himself in pain before beheading himself with the chainsaw, leaving Simon in a shocked an sick state, passing out and finishing the Chapter. *Chapter 2: Who is that Doctor? Simon wakes up after passing out, startled by the presence of a doctor. He quickly tells Simon that he's not "one of them" refering to the enemies that have attacked Simon so far. He tells Simon that he can't trust him and leaves through a door to his right, locking it. Simon then heads out to find a way to escape the city and reach his home. Encountering many threats through his way, he reaches a room where he finds the doctor beheading a man for not telling him the location of a key. Simon interrupts him and the doctor flees from the place. After he flees, a enormous and grotesque creature known as Mace shows Simon that he has the key, before swallowing it. Simon then electrocutes the creature and kills it, then proceeds to find a saw and cuts the creature's stomach to obtain the key. As he continues his way, he enters another nightmare, this time with rusty and bloody hallways and messages on the walls telling him if he ''"likes it" ''and that he ''"never wanted this". He then reaches a hallway where several hands appear on the floor, damaging Simon. He runs as fast as he can to get out, while he sees a flashback of many cops in the area where Simon was trucked by a car. Simon wonders if all if that is an hallucination or if he's going crazy. *Chapter 3: The City is not Safe. Simon proceeds to another part of the city while he recieves an SMS from his mother, telling him to get home quickly as she's worried of him. He then realizes that there's a grotesque creature blocking his was, so he finds an alternate path and continues his way. When he reaches an alley, he's ambushed by the greatest threat of the game, Sawrunner, who can run as fast as Simon and, like the Sawer, he can kill him with one hit. Simon manages to escape this creature after passing through many alleys and jumping to a lower place where he can't catch him... for now. He then proceeds through a park an into another part of the city where he recieves a call on his phone. Simon answers the phone but the signal makes the call almost unhearable, just hearing that the caller is on the roofs. Simon then proceeds to the roofs of the building, where he finds himself with her only friend an secret love interest; Sophie. The two have a conversation in the roofs, Sophie thanking Simon for making his life a bit more bearable in school as she was bullied by her classmates and he was the only boy who was kind to her. Simon replies that he helped her because he liked her, but never had the courage to tell her until now. Sophie replies that he likes him too, but only as a friend and nothing more. He then asks her if she was the one who called her, Sophie saying that he called him to "get away from it all". Simon fails to understand this immediately, asking her what does she means. Sophie then replies that he "knows well" what she means, before she jumpes off the edge of the roof and dies, leaving Simon in a shocked state. As he peers down, a new creature appears; Carcass , who serves as the boss. Simon blames the creature as the cause of Sophie's suicide. ''The player can choose to fight Carcass or escape, the decision affecting the ending of the game. Simon then heads to the place where Sophie's body is, the moment he gets there he sees another flashback where Simon confess his fellings to Sophie, but she tells Simon to let her go, marking the end of the chapter. *Chapter 4: Drowned in Sorrow. Simon gets a keycard from Sophie's body and proceeds his way to find a way to get home. He reaches the subway station, but the door is locked and requires a fuse to open it. Simon then travels to Harbor College, where he finds a fuse while being ambushed by enemies known as Faceless. ''He manages to survive the ambush and escapes the college with the fuse, returning to the subway station and using the fuse to enter. He realizes that a door is blocked by the same grotesque monster that blocked his way earlier (Chapter 3) and proceeds to release a train to crash against it, making the way free for him to proceed. Simon's phone runs out of battery and the only available light sources are some flares that are scattered throughout the place. While he finds a way out of the subway, he hears that someone (or something) follows him while breathing heavily. Simon then gets ambushed by enemies known as Citalopram, who are armed with a knife. Simon manages to defeat this enemies and continues his way, only to be almost killed by a train that appeared suddendly. Simon manages to exit the tunnels and reaches another station, only to be greeted by the sound of a gun fire. He then notices that the doctor is on the subway station and has just shot a man. Simon follows him but the doctor locks the door behind him. Simon finds a new battery for his phone and a key. Simon realizes that he now needs 2 fuses to open the door, so he makes his way to where he left his first fuse (the entrace of the subway station) and returns to the apartments searching fo another. In here, he encounters new enemies known as ''Strangers. After reaching a roped-off apartment, he finds a stair that goes down. Simon descend and enters into another nightmare. This time, there's a large corridor in complete darkness. Simon can hear that a doctor is telling something about a patient, that the patient "always goes back to the same place, just watching it like it was yesterday". ''After that, Simon enters a room with a spasming head in the center an 2 cages at his side, releasing some ''Faceless ''to atack Simon. After he kills them, a third cage is opened, revealing a door. Simon opens it, only to find that behind the door is ''Sawrunner, the floor collapses and Simon runs towards the only light that he can see, entering a white room and opening the door in front of him, which returns him to the roped-off apartment, obtaining the second fuse. After opening the door with the fuses, Simon reaches a train that has a signal malfunction and requires 2 fuses to work. Simon finds a sledgehammer and breaks a brick wall to access a door, only to find himself in another nightmare. This time, there's a pitch black void with several bloody platforms and cages hanging from nowhere. Inside the cages there are deformed humans cutting themselves. Simon crosses the platforms and reaches a room with 4 doors and a note that serves as the only clue to go through the right doors. Simon crosses the doors in the correct order and reaches a bloody maze in which he's being chased by creatures known as Hangmen. He manages to find the exit, but before reaching the door, he sees another flashback about the doctor telling the cops about Simon's accident, stating that he's lucky ''to retain upper body motion, but that from the waist down there's no nervous response at all. He also states that Simon had mental issues even prior to the accident. Simon collapses to the ground, losing temporary use of his legs. He crawls towards the door and escapes the maze. *Chapter 5: Leaving this for Good Simon retrieves the fuses and manages to get the train working again. He enters the train and begins to think about what has happened so far. He also wonders if what he's seeing is real or just a mere hallucination, only to be interrupted by a sound coming from the back of the train. He goes to check out and realizes that the train is infested with creatures. The train crashes at one point, leaving Simon without his bag and with the train car about to fall, but Simon manages to get out before the train car collapses. *Chapter 6: It's not Over yet. Simon realizes that he's on a forest, but since there's nothing he can do, he continues his way. Armed with a tree branch and a lantern, Simon gets chased by the ''Sawrunner, but manages to escape. He encounters another enemies known as Crazyrunners, ''who are everywhere in the forest, along with the Hanging women that appear and scream in the less expected place. Simon manages to find a way out of the forest and reaches an asylum, where he sees that the doctor is entering as well. He turns on the electricity of the building and reaches the doctor. He asks Simon to give him a new gun and he'll open the door in front of him. Simon agreed to find the gun as long as the doctor keeps his promise. 'The player can choose to either give him or not the gun. The decision will affect the ending.' After that, the doctor shoots Simon and leaves. Simon manages to go to the attic after fighting his way through enemies known as Psychos, and find the doctor. The two of them engage in a gun fight with Simon resulting victorious. Simon once again has a flashback of the doctor talking to Simon (who's on a wheelchair as a result of the accident). The doctor telling Simon that the medication will not help him by itself. The doctor recommends Simon to try a cognitive therapy and asks Simon to write a book about his fellings and anxiety. After the flashback ends, Simon finishes off the Doctor by stomping his head. *Chapter 7: Only Safe at Home. Simon grabs a key left by the doctor and proceeds his way. After crossing a lake, he reaches an abandoned house where the stairs collapse and gets ambushed by many ''Crazyrunners, Simon enters the sewers and manages to get to Kirkville, his hometown. However, there are still monsters in the place. Simon manages to reach his home and wonders if his mother is okay. He then enters his house, only to realize that his mother is not there. He then enters his room and finds his book. Then another flashback appears, in which, according to our decision in the game, Simon's fate will be decided. If Carcass was killed and you gave the gun to the doctor, ''Simon finishes his book and prepares to commit suicide, but he's interrupted by his evil counterpart, ''Book Simon, ''who opens the door of his apartment and dissapears. At this point the players realizes that the events in Cry of Fear are nothing more than a metaphor of Simon's book therapy. The Simon controlled throughout the game being a depiction of the Real Simon and what combats the trauma on his mind. The real Simon (who's on a wheelchair) follows Book Simon throughout another nightmare. This time, there are giant hands with cuts, reflecting Simon's self-damage. There are also giant eyeballs that spasm. Book Simon will appear on a long hallway ready to finish the real Simon, but he manages to defeat Book Simon, ending the nightmare sequence and triggering the 4th ending, where is revealed that Simon didn't killed his evil counterpart, but rather 2 police officers who entered his apartment to stop him from commiting suicide. Doctors testify that Simon was having a psychosis, and he's tranfered to a mental hospital to what is forseeable as the rest of his life. Recieving treatment from Doctor Purnell (who was the doctor seen throughout the game) and being regularly visited by Sophie, he comes at peace with himself and finishes his book, saying that it has changed his life. *Chapter 8: My Life end Here ''If you didn't killed Carcass and/or didn't gave the gun to the doctor, Simon will commit suicide after finishing it's book, unlocking this chapter. The suicide is shown in the game as Simon entering another nightmare. There are bloody, twisting corridors that move and change it's position, along with an earraping background sound of Simon screaming and cursing. Simon must travel through the corridors and climb over some books that serves as platforms to reach the final boss, ''Sick Simon , who's a depiction of the real Simon. He's behind some metal bars, and he's inmune to any form of damage. The only way to defeat him is to open the metal bars. In this battle, Sick Simon will use psychokinetic powers to throw objects at you, along with being ambushed by an unique variation of ''Faceless, ''one of them dropping a valve when killed. This valves are used to open the metal bars that keep you away from attacking Sick Simon. You must use 4 valves to open the metal bars and attack Sick Simon. Once done, Book Simon (your character) will strangle Sick Simon to death, which is a depiction of the real Simon commiting suicide. Once Sick Simon dies, Book Simon also dies, triggering any of the 3 bad endings. Reception Cry of Fear has recieved critical acclaim in the ModDB/IndieDB pages, as well as on many other sites. Reviews from players and websites (who rarely gave it low scores) have cited Cry of Fear as the most terrifying '''Half-Life '''mod ever created (some have gone even more far calling in ''The Mod of the Century), praising the visual quality of the mod (outstanding for being created with the GoldSource Engine) along with the atmosphere and story. On the day of it's release, the ModDB page collapsed due to the excessive downloads, as well as all the others sites that had hosted the game. As of March 2013, the Mod release of Cry of Fear had been downloaded over 500.000 times. To this date, Cry of Fear holds a score of 9,4 ''in ModDB/IndieDB. Characters *Simon Henriksson, the protagonist. A young man plagued with anxiety and depression *Doctor Purnell, Simon's doctor and mentor. *Sophie, Simon's only friend and secret love interest. Standalone release Some days before Cry of Fear's anniversary, Valve released a '''Half-Life '''update for linux compatibility, making changes in the folders and engine. This update broke almost every mod made for Half-Life, including Cry of Fear. Team Psykskallar members along with many members of their website made a list with all the bugs in the mod and sent it to '''Valve, hoping that they'd fix them. To this date, they solved only one issue an nothing more was done by Valve. Team Psykskallar decided that, since no more could be done for the mod itself, finish the standalone release (now available through Steam). They improved many aspects of the game and (just like the mod version) is completely free. Due to some confussion by Valve regarding Cry of Fear being free or not, the game was delayed until '''''April 25th, 2013, when it was released. The changes made in the Standalone release are: *Does not require Half-Life. *Dramatically increased enemies AI (They follow you everywhere). *Added new Blur Effect (used in Nightmare Sequences and when taking damage). *Improved normal maps. *New high quality sound system for weapon sounds + new sounds. *MP5 weapon for mappers. *Real time donator support. *New inventory layout. *New game menu and game over menu. *More Cutom Campaign slots. *Improved balance with tape recorders and syringes. *More variation in enemies animation. *Custom Campaign are updated to latest versions *A few more scares in the levels *And many other general bug fixes Some reviews "Sorry Father Grigori, Half-Life has never been scarier than this mod" '''-Kotaku''' "This Half-Life mod is terrifying" '''-IGN''' "I considered uninstalling the game, throw my computer out of the window and watching Adventure Time for the rest of the night" '''-Rock, Paper, Shotgun.' ''"Your biggest enemy is the unsettling feeling that follows you from room to room" '''-Horrible Night''' "Cry of Fear is as good, if not better, than many Triple-A horror games out there" '''-eGamer''' "Totally sick and ambitious, it will make you shit diamonds for weeks" '''-Gamereactor''' Cry of Fear/Grey Controversy Grey was released several months after Team Psykskallar award-winner and critically-acclaimed mod, Cry of Fear. And it's quite obvious that Grey was inspired by part of their work and on many other horror games, reason why many players have made comparision due to the extreme similarity ''between these game, going to the point of calling Grey ''"Cry of Fear: Source". Here is a list of the similarities and differences between Cry of Fear and Grey: Similarities *Survival Horror games with multiple endings, coincidentaly released the same year but in different months. *Both games have a main character who wakes up in an abandoned city (Simon of Cry of Fear wakes up after being strucked by a car, while Grey wakes up after having a nightmare on a bar's bathroom) and start venturing to find out what has happened. *Donators have access to an additional weapon (Cry of Fear has the TMP while Grey has the Double Barrel Shotgun). *90% of the doors in both games are locked. *The in-game enemies have relevance to the story and character itself. *Both game's main character are voiced by the same actor and their past is revealed throughout the game. *Both have additional game modes and difficulties. *Both have custom models and content created by the developers themselves. *Both games enemies are extremely fast (except for a few). *Both game's main characters have nightmarish occcurrences throughout the game. *Both games can be somehow linear. *Both games story can be fully comprehended by the end of it. *Both games have easter eggs in addition to some easter egg dedicated to PewDiePie. Differences *Cry of Fear has an inventory system. Grey does not, which adds more to the immersion. *Flashlights in Cry of Fear must be equipped to be used (except in coop campaign) and they have different forms and brightness, but they do not require batteries. Grey's flashlight is a pocket flashlight and can be accessed anytime, but requires batteries to work properly. *Cry of Fear has an almost realistic gun-handling design with 2 reloading animations. Grey handle his weapons like nothing and has a failed reload animation that's rarely seen, but Grey's hands are shaking while he holds a gun, making difficult to use the ironsights without missing, showing that Grey is nervous and afraid about what is happening. *Cry of Fear has 7 endings, Grey has 2. *Cry of Fear has many supplies scattered throughout many places. Grey is unbalanced in both health and ammunition, enemies are overpowered and the player must destroy crates to search for supplies, but this just adds more to the mood in Grey. *Cry of Fear maps have light sources. Grey's maps, although having light sources, are extremely dark (even if you turn on the max brightness in-game), forcing you to almost never turning out the flashlight and wasting more quickly the batteries. *Cry of Fear items are easily noticeable. Grey's items are hard to spot even with the flashlight. *Grey's face is never fully seen in the whole game, which adds more mistery to the character's identity. *Grey doesn't find any other human in the game. Simon from Cry of Fear encounters 2 other humans in the game. *Cry of Fear's aditional difficulties just reduce damage from weapons and give more health to enemies. Grey's hardcore difficulty includes new enemies and changes on puzzles, maps and weapons locations, which are noticeable from the very beginning of the game. *Cry of Fear's main character has a melee weapon from the beginning. Grey doesn't find a weapon until later in the game. *Cry of Fear sends you back to locations you've already been to get key items to progress. Grey does not. *Cry of Fear has 5 bosses. Grey has 1 (and it's really hard to defeat). *Cry of Fear's endings depends on the choices made by the player throughout the game. Grey's endings depends on the difficulty. *Cry of Fear has 30 different unlockables. Grey has a bonus map and challenge maps. *Cry of Fear started being developed in 2008. Grey started being developed in 2009. *Grey has an animation for picking up objects and opening door. Cry of Fear does not. *Cry of Fear became a standalone game after a year of it's release. Grey is still a mod, though there were rumors that the ''Deppresick Team ''members wanted to make it standalone as well, but this was ultimately discarded as they have moved onto a new proyect. *Grey's enemies can attack you from a distance with a whirlwind of knives if you're in a unreachable place for they to get you (like camping over a pile of boxes). *Cry of Fear has a Co-op Mode for up to 4 players. Grey is singleplayer only. Awards Videos Trivia *Although it might be just a coincidence, a poster of the 2012 horror movie ''Sinister ''bears a resemblance to a wallpaper of Cry of Fear. Although the movie poster is on the opposite direction, it can be seen that the girl in the poster is in an almost identical position that Simon in the wallpaper. But then again, as said before, it might just be a strange coincidence. Category:Game